Chapter 20Whose Government? Politics,

Populists, and Progressives, 1880-1917

Reform Visions, 1880-1892• In the 1880s, radical farmers’ groups and Knights of Labor challenged industrialization.

• Groups such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union began groundwork for middle-class progressivism, especially among women.

Electoral Politics after Reconstruction• Fierce partisan conflict after Reconstruction

• Northern disillusionment with Reconstruction and resurgence of ex-Confederates, who regained a strong base in Congress.

• Increased voter participation and political fraud

• Fierce party loyalty among voters

New Initiatives in the 1880s• Assassination of President James Garfield in 1881.

• Spoils system• Patronage• Effect: Pendleton Act (1883)

• President Grover Cleveland (D) 1887

• Hatch Act

• Interstate Commerce Act

• Massachusetts sets reform standard

• Free schooling, free textbooks

• Work safety and unemployment research

• Commissions to oversee banking and dairy farming

Republican Activism

• By 1888 Republicans gained control of both Congress

• Extension of Union veteran pensions

• Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)

• President Benjamin Harrison (R) and MA Representative Henry Cabot Lodge sought to protect black voting rights in the South.

• Bipartisan federal elections board

• Resisted and defeated by urban machine bosses and southerners

• Effect:

The Populist Program

• When Democrats took power in Washington, they faced pressure from rural voters in the South and West who had organized the Farmers’ Alliance.

• Undermined by Democrats and Republicans, the Kansas Farmers’ Alliance and Knights of Labor formed the People’s Party aka the Populists. • Goals:

The Political Earthquakes of the 1890sDepression and Reaction

• Farm foreclosures and railroad bankruptcies were signaling economic trouble. Hard times in Europe caused investors to pull money out of the U.S. Five hundred banks and thousands of other business went under.

• 1886 Haymarket bombing

• 1892 Homestead strike

• 1894 Pullman strike

• Radical reformer Jacob Coxey-

• “Coxey’s Army”

• Democrats and radicals were blamed

• Republicans would control national

politics from 1894 to 1910

Democrats and the “Solid South”

• Poll taxes and limited voting by African Americans in south

• Populists position on race:

• Reaction by Democrats…

• Democrats had to resort to fraud and violence to stop Populist

momentum in the south

• Terrorize black voters and stuffing ballot boxes

• Populists and black leaders were murdered

• Disenfranchisement

• Grandfather clause-

• Literacy tests and poll taxes-

• Why did voter turnouts in South drop from 70% to 34%?

• Racism and segregation became more acute• Facilities, schools, hotels, transportation

• Lynching occurred in broad daylight with thousands gathering to watch

The Election of 1896 and Its Aftermath• The Populist Party faded after opposition in the South and

electoral losses

• Republican William McKinley won easily

• Wave of voter exclusion ensued after election• Literacy tests in North and South

• With exclusion or reduced number of black, poor, and immigrant voters, middle class reformers felt far more comfortable increasing rights of remaining voters.• Direct primary-• 17th Amendment-

The Courts Reject Reform• Lochner v. NY (1905)-

• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)-• Remained intact until 1954, when ___________ v. ______________ struck down segregation.

Reform Reshaped 1901-1917Theodore Roosevelt in the White House• In 1900 William McKinley easily won the presidential election. After his assassination in

1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as McKinley’s replacement.

• As a Republican, he denounced “extreme” views of Populists, and blended reform with needs of private enterprise.

• Environmentalist mixed with pro-business agenda• Conservation or preservation?• Newlands Act-

Antitrust Legislation

• Coal strike of 1902-

• Stronger enforcement of Interstate Commerce Act

and Sherman Antitrust Act

• Elkins Act

• Hepburn Act

• Left a legacy with federal government to dissolve monopolies

Grassroots Progressive Movements

Women and Reform

• Progressive women groups were inspired by emerging fields of social work and social science.

• Social scientists focused special attention on the plight of the urban poor.

• New York Consumers’ League-

• White List-

• National Consumers’ League-

• Muller v. Oregon (1908)-

• Public law in IL for single mothers

• First minimum wage law for women

Civil Rights

• W.E.B. DuBois, Harvard educated sociologist challenged tactics of Booker T. Washington.

• Niagara Movement (1905) in Niagara Falls (Canadian side), had a broad impact

• Called for:

• The Niagara Conference led to the creation of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) in 1909

• National Urban League (1911)

• National Association of Colored Women’s Club

Innovation in the States

• “Wisconsin Idea”- right to “recall” and “referendum”

• Between 1910 and 1917, all industrial states enacted

insurance laws that covered on the job accidents

The Problem of Labor

• The failure to pass labor laws reflected Republican political control and unions’ reluctance to engage in electoral politics.

• Voluntarism-

• Syndicalists-

• General strikes-

Taft and the Election of 1912

• In 1908 Theodore Roosevelt retired and William Howard Taft (R) easily won the presidency.

• By 1912 T. Roosevelt was back into politics and ran under the new “Progressive Party”/”Bull Moose Party”• Federal child labor, labor rights, minimum wage, women’s suffrage, popular recall of court decisions

• Eugene V. Debs- Socialist Party

• Woodrow Wilson- Democrat• NJ governor, direct primary, workers compensation, utility regulation

• Restriction of big business

• Southern racial views

• William Taft- Republican

Wilson and the New Freedom

• Call for stronger federal government. Why?

• African Americans had no reason to vote for Democrats, Republicans, or Progressives. Why?

• Federal income taxes (1913) and Inheritance taxes replaced high Protective Tariffs

• Over subsequent decades, especially between 1930s and 1970s, the income tax system markedly reduced America’s extremes of wealth and poverty.

• Federal Reserve Act of 1913

• Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914

• U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations

• Workers’ right to organize and engage

in collective bargaining

Progressive Legacies

• By the turn of the 20th century, economic reform gained increasing support from middle class and elite progressives, especially in the cities.

• Limitations of the “Progressive Era”

• Racial problems

• Immigrants and poor whites

• Child labor

• Health insurance and old age pensions

• Lack of social welfare programs

• Achievements of the “Progressive Era”

• Stronger government regulation of big business

trusts and monopolies

• End of spoils system and “urban machines”